The Strong Towns Podcast

Building community wealth is difficult. There’s a lot of hard work involved, there are tough calls, there is risk. In even the best of circumstances, there’s always a chance your investment (in dollars, time, and energy) won’t work out. But often it does. Ultimately, this is how cities grow, how wealth is accumulated, how communities prosper, and how the chance to pursue a good life is made available to more people. What’s wild is how often cities get in their own way. Case in point: the parking mandates and subsidies that are probably hobbling your city’s strength and resilience right now. This member week, we are sharing insights into our new strategic plan, including our five priority campaigns. The goal of the End Parking Mandates and Subsidies campaign is to end the practices that cause productive land to be used for motor vehicle storage. You can support this campaign by becoming a member of Strong Towns.

A house is many things. It is shelter, a place to live. It is an investment, a store of wealth. It can be a repository of memories and it can be a dream for the future. “The American Dream,” as a home is sometimes called, is part of our national identity, a narrative many Americans like to tell themselves about what it means to lead a good life. Yet can a house really be all of these things? Moreover, should a house be all these things? This member week, we are sharing insights into our new strategic plan, including our five priority campaigns. The goal of the Incremental Housing campaign is to have the next increment of development intensity allowed, by right, in every neighborhood in America. You can support this campaign by becoming a member of Strong Towns.

Who do we prepare local budgets for, the citizens of a community or distant Wall Street bond investors? Is it more important that an elected council member know what is going on with a city’s finances, or should our local accounting practices be more responsive to the needs of analysts at ratings agencies? We all expect cities to put together budgets and maintain financial reports so citizens can understand what is going on and community leaders can make good decisions. That is what we expect, but that’s not how local government accounting actually works. This member week, we are sharing insights into our new strategic plan, including our five priority campaigns. The goal of the Transparent Local Accounting campaign is to reveal the financial implications of the Suburban Experiment by increasing the transparency of local accounting practices. You can support this campaign by becoming a member of Strong Towns.

When we build a highway, we know we have to maintain it. The same applies to a bridge. Every highway or bridge that has ever been built comes with a predictable and easily calculable schedule for maintenance. This isn’t difficult math. So, why do we struggle to maintain our roads and bridges? Why do we continue to suffer with enormous backlogs of basic infrastructure maintenance? Why do we have round after round of tax increases, referendums, and debt expansions to pay for perpetually underfunded transportation systems? Did nobody see this coming? This member week, we are sharing insights into our new strategic plan, including our five priority campaigns. The goal of the End Highway Expansion campaign is to curtail the primary mechanism of local wealth destruction and municipal insolvency—that being the continued expansion of America’s highways and auto-related transportation systems. You can support this campaign by becoming a member of Strong Towns.

A street is not merely a place for cars. In fact, the primary purpose of a street has nothing to do with motor vehicles at all. A street is, and always has been, a platform for growing community wealth and capacity, the framework for building prosperous human habitat. This member week, we are sharing insights into our new strategic plan, including our five priority campaigns. The goal of the Safe and Productive Streets campaign is to shift the priority of local streets from automobile throughput to human safety and wealth creation. You can support this campaign by becoming a member of Strong Towns.

America Walks is a nationally recognized non-profit organization that aims to create a more walkable America by giving people resources to effectively advocate for change. Join Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn in a conversation with Mike McGinn—executive director at America Walks and once mayor of Seattle—where they talk about the things that make America less walkable and what we can do about it. “We're both struggling with that highway building coalition in our work,” says Chuck. “I think the thing about America Walks today is that I see you’re approaching it from a fresh [and] energized perspective around people walking, and really starting there with getting your feet on the ground, metaphorically and physically in real life.” In this episode of The Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck and McGinn discuss topics such as the federal government passing the largest infrastructure spending bill in the nation's history, why it’s so important for walking that we address highways and how they really affect our communities, and core characteristics of strong cities. Additional Show Notes America Walks website. America Walks (Twitter). Mike McGinn (Twitter). Charles Marohn (Twitter).

People have taken the Strong Towns approach in a lot of fascinating directions, but this might be one of the most fascinating yet: William Chernoff is a young, Vancouver-based musician who has written songs inspired by Strong Towns. During the pandemic, Chernoff also started writing about music, building strong towns, and more. In this conversation, Marohn (a musician himself) and Chernoff discuss the creativity involved in writing and music, the way they’re inspired by others and build upon previous work, and the collaborative nature of art. Chernoff specifically talks about the importance of cultivating financially successful local music scenes, using tools like economic gardening to support mid-level or “Stage 2” music groups—tools Strong Towns also recommends for building up local businesses generally. You don’t want to miss this unique discussion between two people who love music and are passionate about building strong towns! Additional Show Notes Listen to “Chuck’s Strip Mall” on Bandcamp! “Strong Towns music: strong music scenes,” by Will Chernoff, Rhythm Changes (December 2021). “Selections from Strong Towns,” by Will Chernoff, Chernoff Music (June 2021). Will Chernoff (website). Will Chernoff (Twitter). Will Chernoff (Instagram). Charles Marohn (Twitter). Cover image via Will Chernoff.

It's time for another Q&A session! Today, Chuck Marohn will be responding to your questions on things like how to calculate the actual value of spaces like public parks, whether or not high visibility traffic cameras influence driver behavior, and choosing between unfavorable options in planning processes. If you've got a burning query that you want us to answer, head on over to the Community Section of the Acton Lab, and post it there. Our goal is to address as many questions as we can, and especially the ones that we think are going to help a lot of people out. So, stay tuned for future Q&A sessions! Additional Show Notes Sign up for our weekly digest and other emails. Charles Marohn (Twitter).

In most medical centers, physicians hold routine “morbidity and mortality” conferences, where they analyze cases where patients died or were seriously injured while under medical care. In today’s episode of The Strong Towns Podcast, otolaryngologist and surgeon Ryan Crane discusses how these morbidity and mortality conferences are a chance for medical practitioners to learn, through peer review, where they may have gone wrong in caring for a patient. “Was there anything that we missed? Was there something about the patient that we didn’t identify? Did we fail as surgeons?” Says Dr. Crane, “When I pick a patient to operate on and something goes wrong, or I hurt them, they come back to my office and I have to look them in the face and tell them: This is what happened, and I’m sorry.” Where is that sense of accountability in the engineering profession, when people die in car crashes? The medical field certainly isn’t perfect, but perhaps engineers should take a leaf from the doctor’s book and start asking themselves: When people die on our roads, did we fail, as engineers? Additional Show Notes Want to hear the Strong Towns message live? Check out our Events page to see when we’re coming to a location near you! Explore more key Strong Towns concepts—and our top content about them—over at the Action Lab. Charles Marohn (Twitter) Cover image source: Unsplash.

Chuck is taking a little break from podcasting for a few weeks, but in the meantime, here's an update on what's going on behind the scenes at Strong Towns!

“How can a city not have pots overflowing with money if there has been so much growth? How are apartments subsidizing people who live in single-family neighborhoods?” That’s what the city of Oviedo, Florida, asked when it invited Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn (along with Joe Minicozzi and Cate Ryba of Urban3) to speak at its “Make Oviedo Stronger” event last week. We wanted to share Chuck’s talk with you today on the Strong Towns Podcast, because the core Strong Towns concepts he shared with Oviedo are applicable in so many other cities and towns across the United States—including, most likely, in yours. Additional Show Notes Want to hear the Strong Towns message live? Check out our Events page to see when we’re coming to a location near you! Explore more key Strong Towns concepts—and our top content about them—over at the Action Lab. Charles Marohn (Twitter)

Today on the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn is speaking with special guest Annamarie Pluhar. Pluhar is an expert on co-housing and shared housing, and is the author of the book Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates. Despite the fact that practically the entire nation is experiencing a housing crisis, 27% of homes in the U.S. are single occupancy. In other words, one in four adults lives alone, and this is a serious cause of social isolation for many people. Shared housing can be a solution not only for addressing our scarcity of housing, but also for relieving psychological distress for a significant portion of the population. A Strong Town should have many different options for housing. Pluhar shares her expertise on how we can begin including co-housing among those choices, and how the transition to shared housing doesn’t have to be intimidating for individuals. Additional Show Notes Read Annamarie Pluhar’s book, Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates Sharing Housing, Inc. website Charles Marohn (Twitter)

Today on the Strong Towns Podcast, we wanted to give our listeners an update on the lawsuits that Strong Towns is involved in. For those new to Strong Towns, here is a brief overview: Charles Marohn, president of Strong Towns, is an engineer and maintains his license even though he stopped doing engineering work in 2012. Briefly in 2018, his license lapsed. Once he realized this, Marohn promptly renewed it, however, the Minnesota Board of Licensure is claiming that he misrepresented himself to the public during the time when his license had expired. They are now demanding that Marohn sign a stipulation order stating that he deceived the public. In turn, on May 18, 2021, Strong Towns filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Board of Licensure. The complaint holds that the Board and its individual members have violated the First Amendment free speech rights of Charles Marohn and Strong Towns. The threatened action by the Board of Licensure is about one thing: using the power of the state to discredit Strong Towns, a reform movement. To silence speech. To retaliate against an individual who challenges the power and financial advantages enjoyed by a certain class of licensed professionals. This has become even clearer with some new documentation that casts a disturbing light on the situation. Marohn discusses this in detail in the podcast, and you can download the accompanying PDF here. The original article referenced in the documentation can be read here. Additional Show Notes Read more about the lawsuit here, along with the full complaint that was filed and accompanying exhibits, as well as background articles from Strong Towns on engineering reform and the engineering profession. Charles Marohn (Twitter) To support this podcast and the work of Strong Towns, become a member today.

Last year, our friends over at Urban3 introduced us to a nonpartisan nonprofit called Truth in Accounting, which recently published Financial State of the Cities 2022, an annual report that they do on local governments and the state of their budgets. It’s an incredible piece of work, one that says, “We do not advocate for anything: no tax policy, no spending policy. The only thing we advocate for is good budgeting and accounting.” Their only goal is to get the numbers out there to the public, as they believe strongly that governments are harmed when citizens (and sometimes even elected officials) are in the dark when it comes to financial information. Knowledgeable decisions can’t be made if people don’t know the true financial condition of their government. Sheila Weinberg, a CPA and Founder and CEO of Truth in Accounting, joins Chuck Marohn today on the Strong Towns Podcast to talk about the work her organization is doing to make municipal financial information both transparent and available to everyone. Additional Show Notes Truth in Accounting’s website Financial State of the Cities 2022, by Truth in Accounting (2022) Sheila Weinberg (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Cover image source: Truth in Accounting.

Today we wanted to share a conversation between Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn and renowned urban planner and walkability expert Jeff Speck. Speck is a returning guest on the Strong Towns Podcast, and author of the books Walkable City (which is getting an update this November with a new forward and introduction) and Walkable City Rules. He’s also the recipient of this year’s Seaside Prize, and has curated a weekend (March 4–6) of guest lectures at Seaside, which includes speakers like Janette Sadik-Khan, Mike McGinn, Dar Williams, Andres Duany, and Strong Towns’ own Chuck Marohn. It’s going to be a great event, so we encourage you to attend if you’re able to make the trip! Speck also talks with Marohn about Strong Towns’ ongoing lawsuit against the Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure. Marohn gives an update on where the case is at, and shares some of his thoughts on it. He then has an in-depth discussion with Speck about Marohn’s latest book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. You don’t want to miss out on the insights Speck shares about Confessions, and the questions he poses to Marohn about the book! Additional Show Notes To learn more and sign up to attend the 2022 Seaside Weekend, visit the Seaside Institute’s website. Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places Jeff Speck (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Cover image source: Jeff Speck.

It's time for another Q&A session! Today, Chuck Marohn will be responding to your questions on things like what to do about shoddy development, how communities can employ Strong Towns principles when big-money investments are already underway in their places, how bottom-up organizations can fundraise in order to secure longevity, and more. If you've got a burning query that you want us to answer, head on over to the Community Section of the Acton Lab, and post it there. Our goal is to address as many questions as we can, and especially the ones that we think are going to help a lot of people out. So, stay tuned for future Q&A sessions! Additional Show Notes Sign up for our weekly digest and other emails. Charles Marohn (Twitter)

This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn welcomes back a special return guest: Jarrett Walker, head of Jarrett Walker + Associates, a transit-planning firm based in Portland, Oregon. Walker has been a consultant in public transit network, design, and policy for many decades now, and has worked all across North America and other countries worldwide. He’s also the author of the book Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives, as well as the blog Human Transit. Recently while doing his end-of-the-year desk cleaning, Chuck came across an article that Walker wrote in 2018 for the Journal of Public Transportation titled “To Predict with Confidence, Plan for Freedom.” Upon rereading it (for the fourth time), Chuck knew he wanted to talk to Walker about this piece. So, join in for this conversation about the limitations of prediction, starting with a story seven or eight years ago, when Walker was developing a proposed redesign for the bus network in Houston… Additional Show Notes "To Predict with Confidence, Plan for Freedom,” by Jarrett Walker, Journal of Public Transportation (2018). Jarrett Walker (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter)

Can driverless cars really be the “safe, sustainable, and inclusive ‘mobility solutions’ that tech companies and automakers are promising us”? In his newest book, Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving, technology historian Peter Norton argues that we should treat these utopian promises about driverless vehicles with a great deal more caution and skepticism. Autonorama exposes how, from its inception in the Depression era, the automobile was a subject of controversy; believe it or not, not everyone initially wanted cars around. Over time, however, a shift occurred that caused us to see automobiles as the solution, and a not a problem, for our transportation needs in cities. Today on the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn is interviewing Peter Norton about Autonorama. They discuss the history behind our shift in perception toward cars—up to our current societal fixation on driverless cars, the wrong answer for a problem we can solve with resources we already have, and without doing further harm to ourselves and the environment. Additional Show Notes Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving Peter Norton (University of Virginia) Charles Marohn (Twitter)

Americans drove less during the early months of pandemic, yet traffic fatalities increased. There was a sense among many safety experts that this was an anomaly, that fatality rates would revert to trend once people started driving again. That didn’t happen. Instead, as overall driving levels have returned to normal, crashes and fatality rates have remained shockingly high. These results are not explainable by any theory of traffic safety being used by modern transportation professionals. As a result, there has been a search for explanations, one that has embraced some of our newest and most divisive cultural narratives while simultaneously managing to rehash some old and worn-out memes. All this while missing the obvious factor that is, in some ways, too painful for industry insiders to acknowledge. So, what is going on?

This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, we’re kicking off the new year by featuring a special guest: Tim Soerens, author and co-founder of the Parish Collective. Last year, Chuck read Tim’s books The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches Are Transforming Mission, Discipleship and Community and Everywhere You Look: Discovering the Church Right Where You Are—and even recommended them to his priest! If you’re not Christian or not religious, don’t worry: Tim’s not here to preach, but rather to talk about community, and the position of churches within a community. His organization, the Parish Collective, is a network of place-based churches and small community groups who are all wrestling with the question of how to reconnect churches with their neighborhoods. Furthermore, they’re encouraging people to consider what part locally connected churches can play in the strengthening and holistic renewal of a place over time. Strong Towns is, of course, a secular organization. Still, we love hearing about how faith communities and other groups are adopting a Strong Towns approach to tackling the problems in their neighborhoods. In that spirit we hope that you, too, will enjoy this first Strong Towns Podcast episode of 2022.

There have been dozens of people hit on State Street in Springfield, Massachusetts, in recent years, including Gayle Ball who was recently killed crossing State Street in front of the Central Library. Council members are demanding action and they called a special meeting to discuss what can be done. The city’s engineer was there as well, and what ensued was a conversation in two different languages. One is the urgent language of the elected official, reflecting the sadness, fear, and anxiety of residents who have long dealt with this dangerous street. The other is the language of the professional, reflecting the process, standards, and accepted practices of the profession. In this episode, Chuck Marohn plays interpreter, explaining to the city’s engineer—in his language—what he’s being asked to do while explaining to everyone else—in their language—what exactly the engineer is saying.

All of a sudden, the new book from Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, has been out for nearly two months. It’s already received dozens of five-star reviews, and Chuck is out talking about the book around the country, both through events and in the media. Thousands of new people are encountering the Strong Towns message of how to fix the broken—i.e., dangerous, ineffective, wasteful—North American transportation system. We recently invited the book’s earliest and most passionate supporters—including people who preordered Confessions, Strong Towns members, and members of the book launch team—to a Q&A with Chuck. We spent an hour drilling down into the specifics of how to make transportation better and reform the engineering professions. The questions we received from these brilliant and engaged advocates were so good that we wanted to share the Q&A as an episode of the Strong Towns Podcast. In this episode, Chuck answers questions about transportation technology fads, about how to convert stroads into a more productive form, and whether an engineer can use his or her discretion if it deviates from the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. Chuck also gives an update on the Strong Towns lawsuit. And he explains why, if you have to convince neighbors not to stand in the way of a road diet (or other traffic calming measures), it may be too late.

Hey Strong Towns Podcast listeners, it's been a while. Chuck's been out on the road, but the subject of this episode was too important not to talk about now. We're revisiting a library in Springfield that many of you are familiar with, as the dangerous stroad in front of it, State Street, has been a subject many times in Strong Towns articles (and in Chuck's latest book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer). Well, State Street is back in the news, and not because it's gotten any safer. We're sorry to report that it's become the site of another tragedy—one that could have been completely avoided. We need to stop allowing this to happen. You might feel powerless listening to stories like this, but there is something you can do right now to help spread information about the dangers of stroads, and support the activists who are working to make our places safer: You can become a Strong Towns member. Your support is what empowers this movement, so click here to join in and make a difference today.

On December 3, 2014, a 7-year-old girl named Destiny Gonzalez was killed while crossing State Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. What gets lost in the shocking statistics about the number of pedestrians who die each year in traffic crashes—4,884 in the U.S. in 2014, more than 6,700 in 2020—is that they aren’t “statistics” at all, or even “pedestrians” really, but people with names, who had hopes and dreams, and family and friends forever changed by the loss of their loved one. That was certainly the case with Destiny, who was killed while leaving the Central Library with her mother and cousin. She also left behind a father, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. Something else that gets lost in these discussions is how our streets got so unsafe to begin with. Our streets, roads, and stroads are designed according to values so embedded that traffic engineers themselves might not be constantly aware of them. That’s a problem because you can’t fix something you don’t even know exists. It’s also the topic this week on the Strong Towns Podcast. In this episode, Chuck Marohn reads an excerpt from the first chapter of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. Chuck describes why the high costs of the North American transportation system—costs in life and injury, as well as time and prosperity—are the byproduct of the values at the heart of traffic engineering. He also explains why the values of engineers, including traffic speed and traffic volume, aren’t the values most people would prioritize. Confessions of a Recovering Engineer is available everywhere on Wednesday, though if you preorder now you can get immediate access to Chapter One (along with these other great bonuses).

Have you visited the Strong Towns Action Lab? That's where we keep our best, most actionable content. We've written a lot over the years, and we wanted to have a place we could direct people to when they want to quickly access our top content—including videos, podcasts, and e-books. Think of it as a database of resources that we've cultivated just for you! Beyond that, the Action Lab is also where we've begun collecting questions from our readers and listeners, and today we wanted to take a look at some of those here on the Strong Towns Podcast. So, Chuck Marohn will be responding to your questions on things like how to begin slowing cars down on residential streets, how to implement Strong Towns principles when you work for a large-scale development firm, how to implement incrementalism in your place, how to measure success in import replacement, and more! If you've got a burning query that you want us to answer next time, head on over to the Community Section of the Acton Lab, and post it there. Our goal is to address as many questions as we can, and especially the ones that we think are going to help a lot of people out. So, stay tuned for future Q&A sessions! Additional Show Notes Charles Marohn (Twitter) Cover image via Pexels.

Which comes first: a great transit system or a great city that can support it? What role does high-speed rail play in an overall, effective transportation system? And is an incremental approach really possible with high-speed transit? These are important questions with potentially complex answers. For insight we turned to Rick Harnish. He’s executive director of the High Speed Rail Alliance, the nation’s largest high-speed rail advocacy organization. The organization’s goal is to make high-speed trains “fast, frequent, and affordable.” Harnish cofounded the Alliance in 1993 (he’s also a Strong Towns member), and we’re pleased to welcome him as our guest this week on the Strong Towns Podcast. In this episode, Harnish and Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn talk about how much of the transit that gets built is based on what places need versus what they can get funding for. They discuss the problem of thinking about transit as a “charitable overlay” to an auto-oriented system, and whether we can afford to fund high-speed transit while also funding new car infrastructure. They also talk about what the U.S and Canada should—and shouldn’t—learn about high-speed rail from countries like France, Japan, and China. Additional Show Notes High Speed Rail Alliance High Speed Rail Alliance (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Confessions of an Engineer Check out more Strong Towns content on public transit in the Action Lab

This week on the Strong Towns podcast, Chuck makes a confession about something he did that he now regrets...and you might be surprised at how much of it revolves around poor placement of park benches in his town of Brainerd, Minnesota. Of course, that's not all this episode deals with. What Chuck's beef with his local park's benches really boils down to is the systematic devaluation of public space, by people who have both good intentions and not a clue what they're doing. Their misguided attempts to enhance the park has actually made it a worse place to be. By extension, its ability to generate wealth and provide a beautiful public area for the neighborhood has been impaired. How can you deal with similar issues in your own place? Maybe not with the exact approach that Chuck took (again, there are some regrets expressed in this episode), but there's still a lot we can learn from Brainerd's example. And if you really want to learn the ropes of urban design, then you need to enroll in our newest Academy course, Urban Design Principles for a Strong Town. It was designed specifically to teach non-professionals easy steps they can take right now to start improving their city or town. Additional Show Notes Learn more about Urban Design Principles for a Strong Town. Charles Marohn (Twitter) Cover image via Unsplash.

For more than four years, Strong Towns has been telling the story of the so-called I-49 Connector project in Shreveport, Louisiana. We say “so-called” because while this project may seek to connect two sections of I-49, it will do so by rending the Allendale neighborhood, a vibrant, predominantly black neighborhood that is the gateway to downtown Shreveport. It will also cost an extraordinary amount of money—an estimated $700 million—for less than four miles of road. Some state and city officials have been pushing for the project for years, but a growing grassroots movement of neighborhood leaders are fighting back. According to a local ABC affiliate, after decades of studies and meetings and discussion, a decision on the project is expected in late 2021 or early 2022. In this episode of The Strong Towns Podcast, we’re sharing the audio from a webcast we did last week. Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn and Program Director Rachel Quednau interview four exceptional leaders working to stop the urban highway expansion, strengthen the Allendale neighborhood, and prevent officials from pursuing a financially ruinous megaproject. Neighborhood podcast host Roosevelt Bryant, city councilwoman LeVette Fuller, local nonprofit director Kim Mitchell, and Shreveport-based engineer Tim Wright share their insights on the complex nature of highway projects and politics, and discuss a few of the things that make Allendale such a special place. They talk about why a city is only as strong as its weakest neighborhood, how the proposed I-49 project has been lowering the quality of life in Allendale since long before the first bulldozer arrived, and why we can’t simply rely on a philosophical change about urban highways in Washington to save their neighborhood. They also describe how Allendale residents are coming together not just to oppose the highway but to start food co-ops, protect parks, and nurture homegrown incremental development. As LeVetter Fuller put it, the elevated highway project will turn into “drive-over country”: a neighborhood that has the same capacity for charm as the places—Bentonville, Hot Springs, etc.—project boosters are trying to speed drivers to. Learn more about the I-49 project and the response in Shreveport on the Strong Towns website Preorder Confessions of a Recovering Engineer The Allendale Strong organization and Roosevelt Bryant's podcast Kim Mitchell's organization Community Renewal International LeVette Fuller and Tim Wright's organization ReForm Shreveport Finally, join us for our next webcast in this series on August 9, about the fight against a highway project in Austin, TX

You've read Granola Shotgun. You've seen Johnny Sanphillippo on our website (including in an article just released today). You've heard him on the Strong Towns Podcast multiple times, and those interviews have each been hits with our listeners. So, we've invited him back again to chat with Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn. For those who don't know yet, Johnny is a blogger and small-scale developer working with property in and around Madison, Wisconsin. His adventures (and sometimes misadventures) in the suburbs of Madison, along with traveling, interviewing others, and photographing places around the country, have all afforded him some interesting insights into the North American development pattern. On this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, he shares his perspectives on “occupying” the suburbs on its own terms, the future of our relationship with the automobile, dealing with complex problems (especially when those problems become a crisis), "dystopian" views, intergenerational cooperation, and more. Additional Show Notes: Granola Shotgun Johnny Sanphillippo (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter)

We hear it all the time: “Keep your options open.” It’s the philosophy that shapes much of our approach to education, career, and relationships. It also shapes where we choose to live and, critically, how we live there. Pete Davis calls this infinite browsing mode, and he says it is the defining characteristic of our time. Davis compares it to a long hallway with countless doors, each of which leads to new possibilities. Having options can be fun and even liberating. But there are also downsides of hopping from room to room, of living life in the hallway. And the thing is, says Davis, the people we most admire—for example, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mister Rogers, Dorothy Day, or the unsung local advocate going about the work of making the neighborhood better—are the folks who ignored the advice to keep their options open. Rather, they are, in a word, dedicated. A few years ago, Pete Davis helped bring Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn to speak at Harvard. We’re thrilled now to welcome Davis in return as our guest this week on the Strong Towns Podcast. Davis is a writer and civic advocate from Falls Church, Virginia. He’s the co-founder of the Democracy Policy Network, a state policy organization focused on raising up ideas that deepen democracy. Davis’s 2018 Harvard Law School graduation speech, ”A Counterculture of Commitment,” has been viewed more than 30 million times. And he’s now expanded that into a new book: Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing. In this episode, Marohn and Davis discuss where the maximize-your-options mindset comes from and why it is and isn’t a generational thing. They also talk about how the “counterculture of commitment” manifests itself in various spheres—including our education system, economy, and local communities—and why we should celebrate maintainers at least as much as innovators. They also tell stories about some of their own favorite “long-haul heroes.” Additional Show Notes: PeteDavis.org Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing, by Pete Davis Pete Davis (Newsletter) “A Counterculture of Commitment” (Commencement Speech) Pete Davis (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter)

The traditional development pattern of towns and cities evolved with humans, the same way ant hills evolved with the ant and bee hives evolved with the bee. Yet around the time of the Great Depression, North Americans began jettisoning millennia of accumulated wisdom about city-building in favor of a suburban development pattern that was scaled for cars rather than people, built to a finished state and all at once, resistant to feedback and adaptation, and ultimately unable to pay for itself. At Strong Towns we call this massive and relatively sudden shift the “Suburban Experiment”—and we’re all the guinea pigs. Several generations into this experiment, the data is in: the suburban development pattern doesn’t work: North American cities exchanged long-term stability for near-term growth, but now the bills are coming due. An entire continent of cities are slipping toward insolvency. Last month, Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn was the guest on Saving Elephants, a podcast geared toward conservative Millennials. Chuck and host Josh Lewis had a great conversation on a range of topics, and we received permission to re-run the episode here. In this episode, Chuck and Josh talk about the ways in which cities undermine their own competitiveness, why the big box store model is competitive at the national level but extractive at the local level, and how cities pursue megaprojects backwards. They also discuss the role of local conservatives and why the Strong Towns message is “trans-partisan.” You’ll also want to hear Chuck’s answer to this question from Josh: “How screwed are we, as younger Americans?” Additional Show Notes Saving Elephants Podcast Saving Elephants (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Strong Towns content related to this episode: “This is the End of the Suburban Experiment,” by Charles Marohn “Building Strong Local Economies (without Cheesecake Factory),” by Charles Marohn Big Box Stores: America’s Rigged Game for Retail (free e-book) Big Box Stores (Action Lab) “The California High-Speed Train that Wasn’t: The Opportunity Cost of Megaprojects,” by Daniel Herriges “On the American Jobs Plan: A 5-Part Response from Strong Towns” “Nobody wants to ‘destroy the suburbs.’ But everyone should want to end the Suburban Experiment.” by John Pattison

How far should we go in trusting experts? That's the question that Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn tackles this week on the Strong Towns Podcast. By taking a trip through the past to the present, Chuck looks at various events in recent history—from 9/11 and the Iraq War to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic—to see what they can teach us about blindly trusting in "absolute" expertise. It's a question that plays a central role in Chuck's new book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, which is available for preorder and will be coming out on September 8. In the book, Chuck systematically disassembles all of the things that engineers have gotten wrong over the years, and all the faulty, costly, dangerous standards they have embedded into the profession, as a result. In spite of these issues and in spite of the need for reform, the word of engineers is treated as nearly infallible. They are, after all, the experts. That's not to say that there is no place for experts in society. If you're going to build a bridge, then of course you want engineers. However, what Chuck explores in this episode is the type of expert we need: not those who see their knowledge as so absolute as to be unquestionable, but rather, experts who are aware of the limitations of their own knowledge. Additional Show Notes Charles Marohn (Twitter) Cover image via Flickr

Jason Slaughter is the creator of Not Just Bikes, a fast-growing YouTube channel about urban planning and urban life. Based in Amsterdam, he often makes videos about why city living in The Netherlands is so good...including the bikes, but not just the bikes. Yet Slaughter grew up in London, Ontario, and many of his most-watched videos feature trenchant analyses of the North American suburban development pattern. He’s also creating a popular series (with five installments so far) on core Strong Towns themes. We’re excited to welcome Jason Slaughter as this week’s guest on the Strong Towns Podcast. In this episode, Slaughter tells Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn the story of how a half-mile, death-defying walk along a Houston stroad changed everything for him. They talk about why Amsterdam’s renown for its bikeability and bike culture wasn’t an inevitability, and what other cities—from Brussels to Brainerd—can learn from Amsterdam’s example. They also discuss Amsterdam’s safe streets movement, why Slaughter has been surprised by his channel’s growing (and shifting) popularity, and why building a biking city shouldn’t be the goal. This is Member Week at Strong Towns. If you think this message is important and want to see it reach more people, support the movement. Become a member of Strong Towns. Help us grow the movement by becoming a member today. Additional Show Notes Not Just Bikes (YouTube) Not Just Bikes (Patreon) Not Just Bikes on Twitter NJB Live (YouTube) NJB Live (Twitch) Not Just Bikes — Strong Towns Series Related Strong Towns Content “Can the Dutch Strategy for Cycling Work in North America?” by Aubrey Bryon “Choosing the Car Free Life” (Podcast) “Turning our family’s unremarkable day-to-day into something remarkable,” by Chris and Melissa Bruntlett “How a bike will save you money (and you don't even have to give up your car),” by Rachel Quednau

Last week, we announced that Strong Towns has filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure in federal district court. For more information about the case, its background, and anything that we're doing in relation to it, check out the landing page we've made where you can read the full complaint and get some additional context on our reform efforts. On Thursday, we held a briefing to chat about the lawsuit with our supporters. As guest speakers, the briefing features a member of the legal team, William Mohrman, along with Strong Towns board member John Reuter and Strong Towns member and Mayor Pro Tem of Costa Mesa, California, Andrea Marr—an engineer who has faced similar issues in the past with her local board. Strong Towns Founder and President Charles Marohn was also there to present some of the details of the case and answer questions from attendees. We believe that you should have access to all the details about Strong Towns' efforts to protect the right to call for essential reforms within the engineering profession. If you weren't able to make it to the briefing, you can still listen to everything we discussed via this week's episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, in which we've included the full recording from our discussion on Thursday. Additional Show Notes: John Reuter (Twitter) Andrea Marr (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter)

A small group of professional engineers are using the licensing process to stifle calls for reform and retaliate against Strong Towns for its advocacy. The Strong Towns organization advocates for reforming the way we build our cities, especially the approach that many professional engineers take with transportation and infrastructure systems. Our critiques of engineers include our video “Conversation with an Engineer,” our many statements on the way engineering organizations advocate for state and federal funding, and our assertion that engineers are often grossly negligent in their street designs when it comes to their treatment of people walking and biking. This September, Wiley & Sons will publish Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: A Strong Towns Approach to Transportation, a book written by Charles Marohn that is deeply critical of the standard approach to transportation used by many American engineers. While there are a growing number of engineers that support the kind of reforms Strong Towns advocates for, there are some who do not want this message to be heard. These entrenched engineers often attack reformers — sometimes in very personal ways — to create a high cost for anyone who dares speak out about current practices. Now, for the second time, a professional engineer has filed a complaint with the state licensing board alleging that the writing, speaking, and advocacy for reform of Charles Marohn—the founder and president of Strong Towns—constitutes a violation of Minnesota law. The first time this happened, the licensing board dismissed the complaint. This time, board members are actively participating in the attempt to slander Marohn and the Strong Towns movement. To halt this injustice and protect the right of licensed engineers to speak freely in public forums, Strong Towns has filed a complaint in federal district court against the Minnesota Board of Architecture, Engineering, Land Surveying, Landscape Architecture, Geoscience, and Interior Design (commonly called the Board of Licensure) and the individual members of the Board that are participating in this action. The complaint holds that the Board of Licensure, and these individual members, have violated Marohn’s First Amendment right to free speech and that their enforcement action is an unlawful retaliation against Marohn and Strong Towns for their protected speech. A copy of the complaint is available at www.strongtowns.org/SupportReform. “I am saddened that Strong Towns has been forced to take this action,” said Marohn from his office in Brainerd, Minnesota. “I believe that engineers need to be licensed, but engineers also need to be able to speak their conscience without having their license and their livelihood threatened. The Board’s actions are an injustice to all Minnesotans and, if left unchallenged, will have a chilling effect on speech within the engineering profession.”

How much conscious thought goes into our reactions to a place? It might be less than you think. The more we come to understand the human brain, the more we see how much the unconscious mind, and our need to socialize in particular, influences us. And by extension, it influences our architecture. Our capacity for recognizing human faces, for example, has subtly shaped many traditional styles of buildings. (You might even be picturing it now: the windows as "eyes," the door as a "mouth.") This is an aspect of neuropsychology that other industries readily acknowledge. Your brain is drawn to, and can process, a face far faster than writing and other symbols. Advertisers use this to their advantage to get people's attention and make them feel comfortable...so why don't modern architects heed this aspect of human nature? And as architecture moves further away from its stylistic roots, what are the consequences for us, on a psychological level? This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, Strong Towns president Charles Marohn is joined by Justin Hollander, professor of Urban Environment Policy and Planning at Tufts University, and returning guest Ann Sussman, a registered architect, researcher, and college instructor. Hollander and Sussman have worked together on several books that look at architecture through the lens of human biology and neuroscience: Cognitive Architecture: Designing for How We Respond to the Built Environment and, more recently, Urban Experience and Design: Contemporary Perspectives on Improving the Public Realm. They discuss what makes human beings and the dwellings we build so remarkable, and why the evolutionary perspective must be considered if we want to make our places better for us—on both the conscious and the subconscious level. Additional Show Notes: Justin Hollander (Twitter) Ann Sussman (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Cover image via Flickr

When it comes to housing, Detroit's struggles could be seen as a portent of things to come for other parts of America. Over the past fifteen years, one in three properties in the city have entered into tax foreclosure auctions, with speculators "milking" foreclosed homes for however much money they can get in the short-term, all while letting the property deteriorate. Meanwhile, residents of the home (either the owners themselves or renters) face the possibility of eviction. The ultimate cost for the city in dealing with these poorly maintained homes—not to mention losing population, homeownership, and tax generation potential—comes out to more than if property taxes had simply not been collected from the homeowners. "If the economics are what you want, you cannot say that there is not a far better economic equation to keep people in their homes and collect zero dollars in property taxes for them," says Alex Alsup, director of the Detroit-based Rocket Community Fund, "Preserve those properties, preserve that tax base. It's clearly a far better option." This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, Alsup talks with Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn about Detroit's past and present in regard to housing. Alsup is the director of housing stability at the Rocket Community Fund, an organization that is working to keep people in their homes in Detroit by helping them to navigate issues like completing exemption applications, or, in the case of tenants, assuming ownership if foreclosure proceeds on the property they're occupying. It's work that other communities in the country should be paying attention to. After all, as former Detroit mayor Coleman Young put it, "Detroit today has always been your town tomorrow."

Here at Strong Towns we often talk about cities and towns in North America, but what about our friends across the pond? While cities in the UK may not be facing exactly the same kind of infrastructure crisis as ours, they were similarly impacted by new development patterns after WWII. Namely, the UK implemented planning systems (not wholly unlike zoning in the US) that have, decades down the line, now led to a housing crisis. "The thing that people sometimes say about our [system] is that we've only half of a planning system," says Dr. Samuel Hughes of Policy Exchange, the UK's leading think tank, "We've ended up with the part that's about restriction." These systems have made it very difficult for existing suburban areas to intensify, but at the same time, green belts imposed around cities constrict their ability to expand. The result is a major housing shortage, with the cost of living in places like London increasingly becoming out of reach for many people. Dr. Samuel Hughes, a senior fellow at Policy Exchange and research fellow at the University of Oxford, has (along with colleague Ben Southwood) put together a report for how the UK could tackle this situation. Its title? “Strong Suburbs: Enabling streets to control their own development.” As you might guess, Strong Towns had an impact on their approach, which proposes that residents of a street should be empowered to govern its intensification. Even without coercing people to participate, Policy Exchange has found is that their approach could change streets from a low-density to a middle-density character within a period of only 10-20 years. In other words, the number of available homes could increase severalfold. On this episode of The Strong Towns Podcast, Dr. Hughes speaks with Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn about this potential solution to the UK's housing shortage. They discuss the details of Policy Exchange’s proposal, and how the Strong Towns conversation aligned with their approach while developing it.

Please note: This episode of The Strong Towns Podcast was recorded and scheduled for publication last week, prior to the recent shooting of Duante Wright. “Have you ever had a stare at death?” Michael Odiari has. So have many others who have been pulled over for would-be routine traffic violations. What should be standard procedure too frequently turns into a deadly interaction between police officers and motorists—the latter group being disproportionately composed of African-American males. “It’s scary to be a Black man in America,” Odiari says, having himself looked down the barrel of an officer’s weapon at the age of 17, when he was pulled over for a missing front license plate. And it’s not only drivers who are at risk: routine traffic stops are the leading cause of death for police officers, as well. The process of pulling over on a busy roadway and having to engage in a tense interaction, so full of uncertainties on both sides, is dangerous for everyone involved. The fact of the matter is, routine traffic stops don’t actually make anyone safer. Michael Odiari wants to change this dynamic. Odiari is the founder and chief innovation officer of Check, an app that seeks to make traffic stops safer and simpler. In its current form, Check allows a driver to record their interactions with law enforcement, notify an emergency contact, and pull up a digital ID so that the driver does not have to reach for a physical version in their pockets or glove compartment. But for Odiari, Check is not just an app, it’s a movement. In this episode of The Strong Towns Podcast, Odiari shares his vision for Check’s future with Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn. They discuss the dangers surrounding routine traffic stops and what Check has done to begin addressing the grievances of motorists, law enforcement, and city officials. In time, Check aims to create a technology that allows traffic stops (and paying traffic tickets) to become completely virtual, so that peoples’ lives and welfare no longer have to be endangered over simple violations. Additional Show Notes: Check’s website, with information on how to get the app Michael Odiari (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Cover image via Flickr Strong Towns content related to this episode: “It's time to end the routine traffic stop,” by Charles Marohn “More Thoughts on Ending Traffic Stops,” by Charles Marohn “Want to #SlowTheCars? Don't Rely on Enforcement,” by Daniel Herriges “Why Routine Traffic Stops Don't Make Us Safer” “The Mailbox: Can traffic cameras make our streets safer?” by Charles Marohn

Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn has a conversation with representatives from our two Strongest Town finalists: Mayor Steve Streit of Lockport, and Mayor Robyn Tannehill of Oxford. To vote in the matchup, go here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/4/5/strongest-town-championship-round To catch up on the contest, and to see the full rules and schedule, go here: https://www.strongtowns.org/strongesttown

“Choosing screens over people.” It’s a phrase we hear often these days in relation to smartphones and other digital devices. But, as Eric O. Jacobsen describes in his new book, Three Pieces of Glass: Why We Feel Lonely in a World Mediated by Screens, we started choosing screens—or, more precisely, windshields—decades before the smartphone. Prior to the rise of car culture, we could expect to regularly interact with friends, neighbors, and strangers as we made our way through cities developed with walkability and multimodal transportation in mind. Especially since World War II, we still encounter those folks...but many of those encounters are “mediated by the automobile windshield.” Not only did car culture change how we build cities, it changed how (and how often) we encounter other people: “When we encounter someone [as a driver],” writes Jacobsen, “we don’t encounter another human being with whom we might connect. We as a driver meeting another driver encounter a competitor—a competitor for lane space and parking spaces.” Eric Jacobsen returns to The Strong Towns Podcast to talk about his new book, car culture, and the impact screens are having on our cities and communities. Jacobsen is senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington. He’s also the co-host (with our friend Sara Joy Proppe) of The Embedded Church, a podcast about churches in walkable neighborhoods. A member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Jacobsen is also the author of the books The Space Between Us and Sidewalks in the Kingdom, as well as numerous articles that explore the connections between the Christian faith, local community, and the built environment. In this episode, Jacobsen talks with Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn about how car culture has “exploded” our sense of space, fragmented communities, and weakened public and civic interactions. They discuss why conscious, rational thought and great ideas don’t shape daily decision-making as much as we’d like to imagine. They also talk about what Jane Jacobs can teach us about complexity and humility, why our sense of self can’t be understood apart from the context of community, and why starting a car is a “secular liturgy.” Additional Show Notes Three Pieces of Glass: Why We Feel Lonely in a World Mediated by Screens, by Eric O. Jacobsen The Embedded Church Podcast Eric Jacobsen (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Strong Towns content related to this episode:“The Bottom-Up Revolution is... Empowering Churches to Connect with Their Neighborhoods” (Podcast) “Living in Communion,” by Charles Marohn “Can We Kick the Car Habit?” by Marlene Druker “How Driving Ruins Local Flavor,” by Joe Cortright “The Negative Consequences of Car Dependency,” by Andrew Price “Does God Care How Wide a Road Is?” by John Pattison

The numbers are staggering, saddening, maddening. From 2010-2019, 53,435 people were killed by drivers while walking. That’s up 45% from the previous decade. In 2019, the last year for which we have complete data, 6,237 people were struck and killed...the equivalent of more than 17 per day. The years from 2016-2019 were the four deadliest years in nearly three decades. And early numbers indicate that 2020—a year in which driving was down 13% due to the pandemic—actually saw an increased death rate. What’s going on? With so much money and lip service (“Safety is our top priority”) paid to safety, why do these numbers so consistently go the wrong direction? For more than a decade, our friends at Transportation for America have been analyzing the data and drawing attention to the epidemic of pedestrian deaths. Their latest report, Dangerous by Design 2021, describes the ten-year increase in deaths as “a failure of our government at nearly all levels.” And they urge policymakers to reconsider or abandon an approach that simply isn’t working: Many states and localities have spent the last ten years focusing on enforcement, running ineffectual education campaigns, or blaming the victims of these crashes, while often ignoring the role of roadway design in these deaths. Meanwhile the death count has continued to climb year after year. States and localities cannot simply deploy the same playbook and expect this trend to change—they need a fundamentally different approach to the problem. They need to acknowledge that their approach to building and operating streets and roads is contributing to these deaths. We are pleased to welcome Beth Osborne, the Director of Transportation for America, to this week’s episode of The Strong Towns Podcast. Before joining Transportation for America, Osborne served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Transportation. She also worked in multiple congressional offices, served as the policy director for Smart Growth America, and as the legislative director for environmental policy at the Southern Governors’ Association. In this episode, Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn talks with Osborne about the Dangerous by Design 2021 report, about how engineers and policymakers know what it takes to #SlowTheCars and reduce deaths, and about why they yet fail to act on it. They discuss the need to make behaving safely the easiest thing to do, and the mixed message we send drivers about pedestrian safety. And they discuss the good news/bad news about bipartisanship around this issue, whether to be optimistic about a Mayor Pete D.O.T., and what local leaders can do right now to make their own streets safer. Additional Show Notes: Dangerous by Design 2021 Transportation for America Smart Growth America COVID and the Curb Dangerous by Design Webinar (March 25) Beth Osborne (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Strong Towns content related to this issue: “Pedestrian Deaths Are Up 45% in the Last Decade. When Is Enough Enough?” by Daniel Herriges “What Can We Hope For from a Mayor Pete D.O.T.? (Podcast) “This Will Change How You Hear Traffic Reports,” by Daniel Herriges “The Most Important Pedestrian Safety Document You've Never Heard Of,” by Angie Schmitt & Mike McGinn “Now Is the Time to End Traffic Fatalities. Here's a Simple Plan to Do It.” by Charles Marohn “Have Coronavirus Shutdowns Prompted an Epidemic of Reckless Driving?” by Daniel Herriges

Grace Olmstead grew up in a tiny Idaho farming community her family has called home for generations. But, as so many young people do, Olmstead decided to leave her rural town. She attended college on the other side of the country and now lives outside Washington, D.C., where she’s a journalist who focuses on farming, localism, and family. Olmstead’s writing has been published in The American Conservative, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Christianity Today, among many other publications. She’s also one of our favorite writers here at Strong Towns. Olmstead has a new book coming out tomorrow: Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind. It’s an important (and beautifully written) work about the places we come from and counting the costs of leaving them behind. Combining memoir and journalism, Olmstead explores her family’s deep roots in Emmett, Idaho, what it means to be transplanted elsewhere, and the pressures and opportunities facing many small towns like the one she grew up in. This week, Grace Olmstead returns to the Strong Towns Podcast to talk with Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn. They discuss the new book and why we need to tell complicated rural stories. They talk about two archetypes of the American West—“Boomers” and “Stickers”—and about how the most successful western communities were built not on rugged individualism but on extreme neighborliness. Olmstead and Marohn also discuss how farming communities have come to resemble other kinds of extractive communities—and whether new approaches to farming, such as agritourism, can coexist alongside conventional agriculture. Additional Show Notes Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind by Grace Olmstead Grace Olmstead’s monthly newsletter Midwest Futures, by Phil Christmans “The efficiency curse,” by Michael Pollan “This Is What Happens When Markets are Too Efficient” (Podcast) Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, by J.D. Vance Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, by Sarah Smarsh The Homecomers Podcast Grace Olmstead (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Strong Towns content related to this episode “This Is Where the Work Begins,” by Grace Olmstead “Gracy Olmstead: It Still Takes a Village” (Podcast) “The Tragic Downside of Efficiency,” by Charles Marohn “We’re in the Endgame Now for Small Towns,” by Charles Marohn “A Plan for Building Strong Rural Communities,” by Charles Marohn “It’s Time to Fix our Fragile Food Systems,” by Charles Marohn “Tim Carney: ‘Alienated America’ and the Rise of Populism” (Podcast) “Patrick Deneen: Big, Impersonal Institutions Are Failing Us. Loyalty to Our Communities Might Save Us.” (Podcast) “Boomers, Stickers, and the Lifecycle of a Cool Neighborhood,” by John Pattison

A growing body of research—including research by Raj Chetty’s Equality of Opportunity Project (now called Opportunity Insights)—is making it plain: where a person lives has a huge influence on their ability to build prosperity, climb the economic ladder, and pursue the American Dream. Yet why do some cities and neighborhoods do better at this than others? What lessons can be learned and then translated into local policies and practices elsewhere, so that more Americans have access to economic opportunity? To help answer these questions, The George W. Bush Institute is producing a series of reports called the Blueprint for Opportunity. The first of those reports, “Cities and Opportunity in 21st Century America,” was released in November. It looked at 61 metropolitan areas—home to 80 million Americans—that are standouts when it comes to economic mobility. These cities are notable because they have been “unusually successful in fostering relatively high college completion, job-market access, new business creation, and housing affordability. They also tend to score high for social capital—the dense fabric of social connection and civic engagement that makes a community tick.” The report also makes clear that “cities of opportunity” aren’t limited to the superstar coastal metros like Washington, D.C., Boston, or San Francisco. Far from it: exciting (and instructive) things are happening in mid-sized, middle-income, middle-America cities like Des Moines, Lincoln, Boise, among many others. “[Creating] a high-opportunity city doesn’t require the vast wealth of America’s top technology or finance capitals,” the report concludes. “Every city or town has unexplored avenues to promote opportunity, one neighborhood at a time.” On this week’s episode of the Strong Towns podcast, we’re excited to have as our guest the author of that report, J.H. Cullum Clark, the Director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics at Southern Methodist University, and is on the faculty of SMU’s Department of Economics. Before joining the Bush Institute, he worked for 25 years in the investment industry. In this episode, Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn talks with Clark about how a person’s neighborhood powerfully influences their trajectory in life, the characteristics many cities of opportunity have in common, and how drawing lessons from these places can help create more cities of opportunity. They compare and contrast cities from the Bay Area, Texas, and northern Great Plains. They discuss why cities with authentic character and local flair are doing better economically than those without. And they talk about whether it’s time to admit that centralized, top-down homeownership programs—often touted as the path to the American dream—simply aren’t working for the country’s most vulnerable populations. Additional Show Notes: “Cities and Opportunity in 21st Century America,” by J.H. Cullum Clark Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative Cullum Clark (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Strong Towns content related to this episode: “The Limits of Job Creation,” by Joe Cortright “Why mixed-income neighborhoods matter: Lifting kids out of poverty,” by Joe Cortright “How Paul Stewart Inspired His Neighbors to Revitalize Their Declining Neighborhoods” “Chris Gibbons: This Is How You Grow a Local Economy” (Podcast) Economic Development (Strong Towns Action Lab)

Strong Towns advocates believe the way to grow stronger and more financially resilient towns and cities—and, by extension, a stronger, more resilient country—is from the bottom up. A bottom-up approach is one that meets the actual needs of residents. It taps into the energy and creativity that already exists in our communities. It is sensitive and responsive to feedback. (“This is working. That isn’t. Let’s hit the gas here, and pump the brakes there.”) It relies on small, incremental investments (little bets) instead of large, transformative projects. And it is obsessed with running the numbers, as Strong Towns founder and president Chuck Marohn wrote when describing the Strong Towns approach: “If we’re not doing the math, if we’re not asking the hard financial questions with each step we take, we’re doing a disservice to our fellow residents and the future generations who will inherit our choices.” While much of this bottom-up work is happening at the local level, there is an important role for the federal government. This week we’re excited to welcome to the Strong Towns podcast two U.S. representatives to talk about just that. Both are longtime Strong Towns readers, and they are thinking deeply about how Congress can strengthen towns and cities and get the economy moving again. Rep. Jake Auchincloss is a Democrat representing Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district. After graduating from Harvard College, Auchincloss joined the Marines. He commanded infantry in Afghanistan and special operations in Panama, and he's now a major in the reserves. After returning home, he served on the City Council in Newton, Massachusetts. Auchincloss was elected to Congress in 2020 and serves on The House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure. Rep. Mike Gallagher is a Republican representing Wisconsin’s 8th congressional district. Gallagher is a Marine veteran, serving for seven years on active duty and earning the rank of Captain. After earning his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, Gallagher went on to earn a master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University, a second in Strategic Intelligence from National Intelligence University, and his PhD in International Relations from Georgetown. Prior to getting elected to Congress in 2016, he worked in the private sector at a global energy and supply chain management company in Green Bay. Rep. Gallagher serves on the House Armed Services Committee and, with Rep. Auchincloss, on the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. In this episode of the podcast—which we’re also releasing below on video and in transcript—Chuck Marohn talks with the congressmen about the challenges facing communities in their home districts and around the country. They discuss the push in Washington for a big infrastructure bill, whether a tension exists between infrastructure spending as economic stimulus and infrastructure spending as smart long-term investment, and the growing consensus to address the nation’s mountain of backlogged maintenance projects. They also talk about how the federal government can support smaller projects that may be less sexy but actually have a high ROI, why mayors and city councils must be empowered to make the decisions right for their communities, and much, much more. Additional Show Notes Rep. Jake Auchincloss (Website) Rep. Jake Auchincloss (Twitter) Rep. Mike Gallagher (Website) Rep. Mike Gallagher (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) The House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure Recent Strong Towns content related to this episode: “The Strong Towns Approach to Public Investment,” by Charles Marohn “The Act Like You INVEST In America Act,” by Charles Marohn “What Can We Hope For from a Mayor Pete D.O.T.?” (Podcast) “The Great GASB!” by Joe Minicozzi “A Better Use of Federal Infrastructure Spending” (Podcast) “The Worst Possible Thing We Can Do With This Money” (Podcast) “If We’re Not Going to Maintain What We Have, Then Why Bother Building Anything New?” by Charles Marohn “You Were Mentioned on the Floor of Congress,” by John Pattison “#NoNewRoads Gains Traction in D.C.”

As leaders in Washington, DC look to stimulate the American economy, one course of action with bipartisan support—as per usual—is to pour money into infrastructure. Yet as Strong Towns readers know, infrastructure spending often leads cities down the road of insolvency rather than prosperity, and not all infrastructure spending is alike. In a recent two-part policy brief, Joseph W. Kane and Shalini Vajjhala of The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program wrote that “to truly improve the country’s infrastructure and help the most vulnerable households, federal leaders cannot simply throw more money at shiny new projects. Instead, they must invest with purpose and undo the harms of our legacy infrastructure systems.” They continued: “Above all, leaders should prioritize people over projects in our infrastructure plans. In practice, that means defining, measuring, and addressing our infrastructure challenges based on the needs of users of new and existing systems.” One of the authors of that brief, Joseph Kane, is the guest on this week’s episode of the Strong Towns podcast. Kane is a senior research associate and associate follow at the Metropolitan Policy Program. An economist and urban planner, his work focuses on wide array of built environment issues, including transportation and water infrastructure. In this jam-packed episode, Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn talks with Kane about the role infrastructure spending could play as part of the recovery agenda. Kane and Marohn discuss why “building back better” (President Biden’s phrase) doesn’t have to mean “build back new;” it could mean build back different, build less, and maybe even take down what we’ve already built. They also talk about whether an infrastructure bill in the trillions of dollars can address the nuances of what’s actually needed at the local level, whether Americans are more comfortable with catastrophic failures than the small ones that might teach valuable lessons along the way toward economic resilience, and about Kane and Vajjhala’s four strategies that can help undo the harms of “legacy infrastructure systems.” Additional Show Notes: “Prioritize people, not projects: Addressing the harms of legacy infrastructure in the COVID-19 recovery,” by Joseph W. Kane and Shalini Vajjhala (Part 1) “Four steps to undo the harms of legacy infrastructure in the COVID-19 recovery,” by Shalani Vajjhala and Joseph W. Kane (Part 2) Joseph Kane (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Select Strong Towns content on infrastructure spending “The more we build, the poorer we get,” by Charles Marohn “A Better Use of Federal Infrastructure Spending” (Podcast) “The Worst Possible Thing We Can Do with This Money” (Podcast) “What Should My City Do About Our Infrastructure Backlog?” by Charles Marohn “Would a $2 Trillion Infrastructure Spending Surge Promote Good Planning?” by Daniel Herriges

Since January 2017, at least once a month (and often more frequently than that), Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn has co-hosted a radio show on 91.7 KAXE, Northern Community Radio, along with his friend Aaron Brown—an author, reporter, and educator—and Heidi Holtan, the station’s News and Public Affairs Director. Since the debut of Dig Deep, topics have varied widely: the 2020 election, Minnesota politics, the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, climate change, rural life, health care, universal basic income, the history and future of labor unions in Minnesota, and the cohosts’ latest books, among many others. The show’s aim? To “model some good behavior in our world—a place where a liberal can talk to a conservative and a conservative can talk to a liberal and be not only civil, but actually listen.” (Chuck represents the more conservative viewpoint, and Aaron the more progressive viewpoint.) In the most recent episode of Dig Deep, Chuck and Aaron discussed what democracy looks like in 2021 and beyond. The conversation is short—less than 20 minutes—but lively. The two friends talk about whether the United States is becoming more democratic, whether our institutions work better the more democratic they become, and how all levels of government can become not just more representative of the people but more responsive to their actual needs. We wanted to share the episode with our audience by re-broadcasting (along with a short introduction by Chuck) on the Strong Towns podcast. While the Strong Towns organization is fiercely non-partisan, the Strong Towns movement is comprised of people from across the political spectrum. Left, right, and everywhere in between, people are coming together to build stronger and more financially resilient cities. No matter where you are on that spectrum, and no matter how you would answer that question—“What does democracy look like now?”—one thing we can agree on: friends talking (and listening) well across their differences must be a part of it.

The ongoing pandemic has raised big questions about the future of North American cities. For example, we’ve heard for almost a year now that COVID-19 will be the end of cities and the triumph of the suburbs. After all, why would people who could work anywhere choose to live in dense, plague-riddled cities? We’ve published our share of responses to this line of thinking—including articles by Joe Cortight of City Observatory, Joe Minicozzi of Urban3, and others—but the gloomy predictions keep coming. For years, one person we at Strong Towns have turned to again and again for wisdom on the present and future of cities is Richard Florida. Florida is a researcher and professor at the University of Toronto, the author of numerous books—including the modern classic, The Rise of the Creative Class—and the co-founder of CityLab. Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn invited Florida back to the Strong Towns podcast to talk about the choices facing cities now and after the pandemic. They discuss Florida’s insight that where talent goes, innovation and economic development are sure to follow...and what that looks like in an era of remote work. “Remote work,” Florida says, “gives the knowledge worker a larger portfolio of choices [of where to live].” What cities are best positioned to attract that talent now? They also talk about the future of superstar cities like New York and London, why some cities (Toronto and Minneapolis are examples) are stuck in two worlds, and how the pandemic has widened the socioeconomic gaps between the “privileged third” and everyone else. This conversation is available both as a podcast and on video. Additional Show Notes: Richard Florida (Website) Richard Florida (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Watch the conversation on YouTube More Strong Towns content featuring Richard Florida “Richard Florida and the New Urban Crisis” (Podcast) “The Growth Ponzi Scheme, Part 4,” by Charles Marohn (see an overview of The Growth Ponzi Scheme here) “Recommended Reading: The Great Reset,” by Charles Marohn

In last week’s episode of the Strong Towns podcast, Chuck Marohn, the founder and president of Strong Towns, talked with the economist Alison Schrager about uncertainty and risk. In this week’s episode, Chuck provides some additional thoughts on risk—and, in particular, the risks towns and cities are taking with their financial futures. Not only are communities making bad bets by going all-in on the Suburban Experiment, they assume the government (state and federal) or the market will be there to bail them out if the worse—functional, or actual, insolvency—happens. But, as Chuck demonstrates, that’s an awfully big assumption. For one thing, the federal government and the market are taking huge risks themselves. We can’t count on the market to bail us out; the market today is almost absurdly irrational. And the federal government is a tenuous partner at best. No one has studied just much money the feds can actually afford to borrow. How much debt runway do we have? No one knows, but we’re hurtling down it with abandon. For another thing, because our communities are being built according to the same one-size-fits-all suburban development pattern, they’re likely to fail in the same way. We’re 100% correlated, Chuck says. In that scenario, which cities will get rescued? What will differentiate your town from the one up the road? Drawing on the work of Tomas Sedlacek, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and others, Chuck talks about all the assumptions the government, market, and local communities are all making about one another. Then he talks about how the truly strong towns can take their financial futures into their own hands. Additional Show Notes Allison Schrager: "The only insurance against uncertainty is resilience.” (Podcast) “No one knows how much the government can borrow,” by Noah Smith Tomas Sedlacek: A More Humane Economics (Podcast) Charles Marohn (Twitter) Related Strong Towns Content “Winning Is the Absence of Losing,” by Charles Marohn Articles on antifragility “Strong Towns 101: Risk and Reward,” by Charles Marohn “The Difference between Growth and Wealth,” by Charles Marohn

Is there a meaningful difference between risk and uncertainty? On the face of it, we might not think so; in casual usage, we could employ the words interchangeably. But some economists see an important distinction between the two. Early in the American experience of the pandemic, economist Allison Schrager wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal called “Risk, Uncertainty and Coronavirus” (paywall). “The novel coronavirus appears at first to be a problem of risk management,” she wrote. “It is a dangerous disease that threatens the lives of our neighbors and loved ones. Our response—increased social distancing, shutting down businesses—is aimed at reducing that risk. But the problem isn’t risk so much as uncertainty.” She goes on to explain that not long after the 1918 flu pandemic, another economist, Frank Knight, made a distinction between risk and uncertainty. Schrager picks up there: The future is unknowable, but risk is measurable. It can be estimated using data, provided similar situations have happened before. Uncertainty, on the other hand, deals with outcomes we can’t predict or never saw coming. Risk can be managed. Uncertainty makes it impossible to weigh costs and benefits, such as whether reducing the spread of a virus is worth the cost of an economic shutdown that could last several months. The most responsible course of action is to assume the worst and take the most risk-averse position. Managing uncertainty is expensive: In markets, it means holding cash; in society, it means shutting down. Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn says he’s gone back to Schrager’s Wall Street Journal piece, as well as her other writing, numerous times throughout the pandemic. That’s why it’s a special pleasure to welcome her on this week’s episode of the Strong Towns podcast. Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, author of the book An Economist Walks into a Brothel: And Other Places to Understand Risk, and cofounder of LifeCycle Finance Partners, LLC, a risk management firm. In this episode, Marohn and Schrager talk about that difference between risk and uncertainty, the tension between efficiency and adaptability, and whether people are geographically sorting during the pandemic based on risk preference. They discuss why meatpackers in Iowa were more prescient about the coronavirus than global finance experts in New York. And they discuss how local communities should be thinking about their own fragility. “The only insurance against uncertainty,” says Schrager, “is resilience.” Additional Shownotes “Risk, Uncertainty and Coronavirus,” by Allison Schrager (paywall) Allison Schrager at the Manhattan Institute An Economist Walks into a Brothel: And Other Places to Understand Risk, by Allison Schrager Allison Schrager (Twitter) Charles Marohn (Twitter)